Educational trips to mainland China for Hong Kong secondary school pupils’ new core subject ‘eye-opening’, youngsters say
- One pupil says trip brought her closer to the country and emphasised influence of national development on her daily life
- Education Bureau says it will cut the number of whistle-stop one day tours and increase the amount of longer ones after canvassing opinions
Hong Kong secondary school pupils who joined compulsory mainland study tours for a new core subject of citizenship and social development said the trips were an “eye-opening” experience that brought them closer to the country.
“I previously thought the distance between me and the country was so far. I found out most of the things in my daily life relate to the country’s development,” 17-year-old Yoyo Cheung said on Monday.
“The trip really changed my view about the country’s development and how close it could be to my daily life,” the Form Six pupil at the Chinese Foundation Secondary School said after her trip to the aerospace science education base in Shenzhen.
Cheung was among 43,000 pupils who took study tours as part of the curriculum for the new subject.
About 5,000 teachers also took part in the trips, which ran between April and August, and lasted from one to several days.
The new core subject for senior secondary pupils was introduced in 2021 to replace liberal studies, which was ditched after accusations that the curriculum was radicalising youngsters.
The new syllabus was designed to focus on national security, identity, lawfulness and patriotism.
Yolanda Ko Ching-yan, 17, a Form Six pupil at Shun Tak Fraternal Association Tam Pak Yu College, said her two-day trip was eye-opening, particularly a visit to the Aifeike Aviation Popularisation of Science Education Base in Zhuhai.